78. 10 Songs About the End

The End - The Doors
It's Not The End of the World? - Super Furry Animals
Talkin' World War III Blues - Bob Dylan
It's the End of the World As We Know It - REM
End of the World News (Dose Me Up) - Tom McRae
The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter
End of the World - Susan Motherfuckin' Boyle
End of the World - Ash
Doomsday - Elvis Perkins
We're All Going to Die - Malcolm Middleton

Although we've come to the end of the road, still I can't let go, it's unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you.
Damn, i love that shit, but having Boyle and the Boyz on the same tape would just be toooo good.
Talking of tapes, i just threw out all my compilation tapes, just like that, my beautiful compilation tapes, lovingly constructed, labelled, titled, my proudest achievements, i just threw them out. Cos I'm moving, I'm at the end of the tenure (which is why i've done this post now) and I've decided to throw out everything of real emotional value to me (ie my tapes and my cds) and keep all the inconsequential shit which'll clog up my tiny new flat. Superfly!
By THE END, I don't mean any old end, I do mean THE end, beautiful friend, not just the death of one, but the end of all, woohoo, which might appear to occupy my thoughts, but actually doesn't in the slightest. Well, i suppose it must do a bit, but whenever you tell people that there are strong arguments that this has a significant chance of being the final century for mankind, for a variety of possible reasons, you get treated like a mad monk recruiting for a millenarian death cult. Which I'm not. I don't know much about science etc but i read some books and ... well, anyway, who cares?
But look - people say, every generation has its paranoia about some great cataclysm, in the 60s it was nuclear, it was the bomb etc and it didn't happen, did it? But just cos it didn't happen, doesn't mean it couldn't, and the possible ends now just multiply exponentially. One might suppose that things right themselves, self-regulation will prevent the ultimate disaster, but why would the earth's own self-regulation pay particular heed to humans. That's James Lovelock's idea, isn't it. vaguely, in brief.
Anyway, ironically, this isn't about the end of the world, or about death, or disaster, it's actually just about how it's very hard to know what's going on, we can't always be accountable for our omissions, cos we can't even tell what's going on in our best friend's head sometimes. You dig?
You may recognise the title, borrowed from a book within a book

THE WORLD WAS / SILENT WHEN WE DIED

The world was silent - all the bombs had faded
and I died quietly, as I'd always wanted
The fireworks had been unimpressive, and I
walked home alone as the crowds shouted dry
then, in silence, chose my last memories.
The world was silent, you say, when you died
Looking elsewhere, at its shoes, shamefaced
Too busy flitting through its own little tiffs
While you screamed in rage and pain
Disbelieving that no one was listening
And when you died, I, I was silent
Because sometimes my nothing's not enough
And grief and horror need meeting in kind
But i could muster no words when you died
Just dodged through crowds, deathly, dull,
Innocent or ignorant, both or neither.
The fireworks fire, the choirs sing,
There's beauty in places, why deny?
And the world groans, and I'm dancing
with my friends, and we're laughing
And I walk home alone and free to go
And I fall silent and you fall silent
And there's silence as the world dies.

so i can see how it might appear to be about the end of the world but honestly, it's not, not entirely ...